The choice between rice and death

Last Thursday, the tiny West African nation of Togo held a presidential election. In many ways, it was only news if you were looking for it — which, as someone who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer there in the mid-1990s, I was.

Compared to historic elections in two news-grabbing, turbulent countries — yesterday in Iraq and next month in Sudan – last week’s contest in Togo might seem inconsequential. Again, it might seem like an event that could only concern those with some connection to Togo and, of course, the Togolese people themselves.

But Togo’s latest presidential election — and its still-unfolding aftermath — is relevant to everyone who wishes for equality and fairness and for the voices of people to be heard.

Togo, like many African countries, has been plagued by decades of dictatorship and kleptocracy. When Gnassingbe Eyadema — the prototypical big man who had ruled the country for 38 years — died in 2005, there was a brief moment when a few million people thought things might change. But that moment quickly passed when Eyadema’s son, Faure Gnassingbe, seized power and then held onto it in a hastily called presidential election that was widely regarded as fraudulent.

Violence flared in Lomé, Togo’s capital, as supporters of the main opposition party protested the results. Nearly 800 people were killed, more than 4,300 injured and as many as 24,000 people fled for their lives into neighboring countries.

Five years later — and now more than four decades into rule over Togo by a single family — came another presidential election. Primarily because of the violence that followed the last election, as well as the fraudulence that fueled it, hundreds of peacekeepers and election monitors were deployed to the tiny nation. The European Union set up two-way satellite communications to transmit voting results from local precincts to the electoral headquarters in Lomé. It seemed like there might be some chance at legitimacy this time around.

But, when election day rolled around, the head of Togo’s electoral commission announced that the satellite communications network wasn’t working — so ballots would have to be physically carried from polling stations across the country down to Lomé. The possibility for a fair election dwindled.

There were reports that Gnassingbe’s ruling party was handing out bags of rice to families in particularly poor precincts as they came to cast their votes. (The average Togolese citizen makes less than £2 a day.) European Union observers noted this evidence of trying to buy off voters.

And, of course — according to preliminary results — it worked. Over the weekend, the electoral commission announced that Faure Gnassingbe had won 61 percent of the votes to the leading opposition candidate’s 34 percent.

Today, The New York Times reported that a “special election commando unit” had sealed off opposition headquarters and used tear gas on hundreds of people — including the main opposition candidate — who were trying to protest. A “special election commando unit,” really? What do you do when you’re faced with something like that?

Generations have waited for change in Togo, as well as in numerous countries where dictators and their descendants — whether blood relatives or not —hold sway. These citizens are farmers and teachers, doctors and businesswomen. And, in millions of cases, their voices simply aren’t allowed to count.

One of my friends noted that perhaps the Togolese people just voted “for the devil they know.” But why do they have to vote for a devil at all? Couldn’t there be a better choice?

In Togo, for years now, there has only been one choice: a vote for the status quo or nothing at all. A choice between rice and death.